The Christmas season is upon us! If you are joining me for the first time today: welcome! If you are a returning Flourish & Knot reader, thank you so much for stopping by today. A special welcome to those arriving from Creatively Homespun!
I’ve teamed up with 22 (!) other home decor and DIY bloggers to bring you a wonderful, inspiring holiday home tour blog hop. I am so pleased to be amongst their numbers, and I want to particularly thank Sharon at Pretty Practical Home for organizing this event.
Christmas has always been one of my favourite times of the year, particularly because it means special concerts and family events. My favourite part of Christmas is hands-down the beautiful carols and works for choir. This year I’m blessed to be singing with a wonderful local choir and I cannot wait to sing our programme of sacred and secular Christmas choral music this weekend!
But I digress. Christmas decor is a huge part of getting ready for the holidays, and I always enjoy making our home cheerful and beautiful for the season. This year we are on a tight budget, so I worked hard not to purchase any extra decor, and instead « shopped my closet » full of decorations!
Pull up a chair, pour yourself a second cup of coffee, and let me take you on a tour of my Christmas decor.
We’ll start our tour in the living room, where I kept things airy and shimmery with a blue, white, and silver palette.
Vintage ornaments are always a central part of my Christmas tree, and this year I incorporated them into the decoration of my sideboard (or « buffet » as us Québecois call it). I grouped together a collection of blue, silver, and green vintage glass ornaments, along with some more recent purchases. Everything is displayed in a gorgeous crystal bowl (a wedding gift from my aunt and uncle), which is set on a vintage silver tray (a bridal shower gift from another aunt!). If you look closely, you’ll see that I added a vintage glass chain around the bowl. This chain has a story.
This glass and silver beaded chain belonged to my grandmother (and to her mother before her), and is one of the few items rescued from a particularly horrible house fire. For close to 100 years, this chain (and its longer sister – not pictured) has graced our family’s Christmas tree. It has been painstakingly re-strung more times that we care to count, and is one of those decorations whose story gets told every year (even though we’ve all heard it a thousand times).
Over on my grandmother’s secretary desk, I went a little more casual, with a glass fishbowl vase of painted ombré pinecones. I’ll have a tutorial for those up ASAP! (And as an aside, I apologize for the lack of a DIY post yesterday… The stars were just not aligned. That post will be on its way next week.) I surrounded the bowl with a few glittery snowflake votives, from my favourite decor and DIY source: the Dollar Store! I bought them back in university and still bring them out every year.
I kept things casual on our coffee table (for the time being, at least). To add a little nordic feel, I grouped together three little ceramic houses, with turquoise and blue accents. The Clarence Gagnon art book is a nod to the other side of my family. Gagnon was one of my paternal grandfather’s favourite painters.
Our stockings are new as of last Christmas (I may or may not have finished sewing them on December 24th…) and I just love the braid detail that I was able to add! Oh, did I not mention that I sewed them myself??! 🙂 The braid is actually a hand-me-down from my mother, who bought it – wait for it – over 35 years ago when she was studying singing in Switzerland! I think you’ll agree that it was worth the wait.
In our living room window, Erick helped me to hand a series of blue, white, and silver ornaments. We hung them on fishing line, so from the road they look pretty magical!
The next stop on our tour is a visit to another sentimental family decoration: our vintage crèche (or nativity scene). This belonged to my maternal grandmother, who lived with my family until I was seventeen years old. Every year she would take out the box from under the stairs and carefully place each piece in its place. When I was old enough (and careful enough) to finally handle the plaster figures, it was one of the proudest moments of my childhood! From then on, setting up her crèche was one of our favourite holiday traditions. I still miss her when I set it up every year.
The manger is totally falling apart (I think my grandfather may have built it sometime in the fifties) but I can’t imagine replacing it!
Next up on our tour is a stop in the dining room, where the table is all laid and waiting for guests to arrive for dinner.
I absolutely love setting a beautiful table over the holidays, and having fresh flowers just makes it that much more delightful. There’s something about the juxtaposition of fresh flowers with the chilling cold of December that is simply wonderful. (Except that we’re having unseasonably warm temperatures here in the Great White Green North. Boo.)
I went with a red, white, and gold palette in the dining room, because, well, we have a GIANT cranberry-red accent wall in there (not my choice). One of those « make it work » situations. Ordinarily, I loathe that wall (and am actively planning its demise), but it’s nice for Christmas!
I like to pull together little vignettes that can be easily moved around depending on our entertaining or decor needs. I grouped together some painted pinecones, a brass candlestick, and an antique brass trumpet all on a painted Mexican tray. Of course the tray is a nod to Erick’s heritage, and we are SO excited to be spending time over the holidays with his family!!
I hope you enjoyed taking a little walk around some of my favourite elements of our Christmas decor. But what’s that I hear? « Sarah! » you cry, « you didn’t show us your Christmas tree! » Well guess what? You have to wait until next week for that! I’ll have some DIY projects and a fabulous Christmas tree blog hop, so you’ll get your fix, I promise.
*UPDATED!* You can see our 2015 Christmas tree HERE!
Thank you so much for stopping by. I would love it if you would subscribe to Flourish & Knot (over at the top of the sidebar) so that we can keep in touch! I’m also on social media, so feel free to say « hi ».
Please take some time to visit the other bloggers in our Holiday Home Tour Blog Hop. They all have such lovely holiday inspiration to offer. I’m sure you’ll be brimming with ideas for your home by the end! The next stop on the hop is Iris at Around the Watts House. I think you’ll love her tour!
Have a great weekend!
Monday, November 30th
Green With Decor
3 Little Greenwoods
Our House Now a Home
Lehman Lane
Designing Vibes
Tuesday, December 1st
Q-Schmitz Home Design
Our Crafty Mom
Domicile 37
Shabby Grace Blog
Dream Design DIY
Wednesday, December 2nd
My Life from Home
Up to Date Interiors
Elizabeth Joan Designs
Pretty Practical Home
Thursday, December 3rd
Casa Watkins
The Deans List Blog
Craving Some Creativity
Vintage Romance Style
Friday, December 4th
Flourish & Knot
Around the Watts House
Karen’s Up on the Hill
What Rose Knows
Creatively Homespun
